The present invention relates generally to industrial control and, more particularly, to a flow computer with networked I/O modules.
Flow control and monitoring systems are employed in a variety of industrial applications, such as refining, chemical processing, product distribution, dairy processing, etc. Flow computers may be used with liquid or gas products. Typically, process inputs, such as temperature, pressure, flow meter pulses, density, and the like, are provided to a processing unit and processed to generate flow information, such as flow rate, total volume delivered or produced, total mass, etc.
Liquid metering applications range from relatively small liquid production units, to fiscal and custody transfer flow metering systems, to large-scale crude export facilities (i.e., involving high volume transfer of crude oil). Gas metering applications include production well meters, fuel and flare gas metering, and large pipeline transportation facilities.
Conventional flow computers are typically implemented using an architecture whereby the instruments for a metering application are connected a processing device to complete the flow calculations. In some cases, the unprocessed sensor signals are directly connected to standalone or rack/panel mounted device that uses the sensor data to complete the flow calculations. In other cases, distributed I/O modules may be used to consolidate data from multiple sensors and send the data over dedicated signal lines (e.g., serial connections) to the processing unit. In either implementation, dedicated connections between the sensors and the flow computer processing unit are used. A single processing unit is paired with a single sensor suite to implement the flow computer.
This architecture limits the flexibility and increases the cost of flow monitoring systems. A separate flow computer and sensor suite is required for each monitoring application. To implement a redundancy scheme, the entire system must be duplicated, including the I/O modules, processing unit, and cabling connecting the I/O modules to the processing unit.
This section of this document is intended to introduce various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present invention described and/or claimed below. This section provides background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present invention. It should be understood that the statements in this section of this document are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art. The present invention is directed to overcoming, or at least reducing the effects of, one or more of the problems set forth above.